John MahyFounding Director

Having studied Business Law at University, John embarked on an early sales career and soon realised that his talents were best placed advertising people and not directories and he moved into recruitment joining London recruitment group FSS. It was here that he met future business partner David Florence. After 6 years building part and qualified desks, home called and he relocated back to Bath. After 2 short spells with local recruiters he joined another independent and developed their financial recruitment marketplace. Then, in 2007, thinking they could do things in a more professional manner, he and David began Zen Consulting. Since then, things have snowballed – Zen ended 2012 with another straight successive record year they look forward to continued growth and success Still living in Bath, John is a fan of most sport and plays, including hockey, football, squash, tennis and badminton as well as a keen interest in local food and events

David FlorenceFounding Director

David FlorenceFounding Director

Trained as an actor in Brighton and upon moving to London quickly gave up the idea of ‘treading the boards’, choosing instead to carve out a career in financial recruitment. A good 10 years later and after working for some of the top finance recruitment specialists, he upped sticks and left the ‘Big Smoke’ and sought pastures new by moving to the South West. It was here, whilst working as a Partner for boutique firm Cavendish Maine that he met with his former colleague from FSS Financial – John Mahy. Not long after that, Zen was created in 2007. David has always had a keen eye on work place and sport psychology and often employs some of his extracurricular studies into his recruitment methodologies. David is married and settled in Box near Bath with requisite dog, and can often be seen running, climbing, and cycling in the countryside or if weather and water temperature permits – swimming in the local rivers and lakes. Occasionally this leads to his entering into various endurance races in order to stave off the middle age spread.

Dino PengeNon Exec Director

Dino PengeNon Exec Director

Highly successful and experienced Board Director/MD and Advisor in the staffing sector with an excellent record of growing businesses from start ups to returning shareholder value to stakeholders. Dino graduated from Moorgate Business Faculty in the City of London with a BA (Honours) in Business and Marketing. He began his recruitment career as a Head-hunter in London, focusing on placing Sales & Trading Professionals within Investment Banking. In 1999 Dino was the Co Founder of Blue Group International, a Recruitment Consultancy specialising in Permanent and Contract staffing to the Telecommunications, Construction and the Healthcare Sectors. Dino was key in driving sales growth from this start up to over £19 million within a 2-year period between 1999 to 2001. Blue Group International grew into 3 business areas, Bluetec, Bluecare Medical and Bluecare Social Care and within its 7th year of trading in 2006 the group had a turnover of £48m, £14m NFI, with 180 staff. Following the success of BGI Dino was approached by O&G Investments to launch a Financial Recruitment Consultancy in November 2007, Bridgeman International - initial funding for the launch was £1m. He is currently the Managing Director of Leisurejobs, a Leisure and Hospitality recruitment solutions provider offering both physical and online solutions.. He is an Advisor to Turner Lovell, which operates in the Oil and Gas recruitment sector, alongside his non-exec roles with Bridgeman International and of course Zen Consulting, Dino has been in the recruitment market for 17 years and has extensive experience in executive search, contingency permanent recruitment, contract recruitment, interim desks and managed vendor solutions.

About Us

Established in 2007, The Zen Consulting Group is a small and growing Finance and Accounting, Financial Services, IT and HR recruitment business, based in Bath, working with organisations across all industry sectors.

The team consists of individuals with many years combined recruitment experience and is run by two owners, both of whom hail from the top recruitment firms in the business, bringing with them a knowledge gained from London and South West regions.

Zen was created by John & David to offer an enhanced service to that provided by their previous employers. Focussing on such things as giving unbiased help and advice and a service that puts the needs of the customer first, rather than anything that could be classed as purely a money making activity. Zen coined the phrase – Karma Recruitment, which aptly describes the company ethos of – ‘what goes around, comes around’.

It is for this reason that much oftheir revenue is attained through clients and candidates referringtheir services and typically they are able to work exclusively on assignments that other agencies struggle to fill. In fact the ‘hard to fill’ assignments are often the most interesting and challenging and the Zen workforce like nothing better than a challenge.

Zen works with businesses both large and small and some of the larger organisations would include: